A Review of Bob Dylan’s Massive New Box Set — The Complete Takes

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 1, early version)

For Bob Dylan fans interested in getting drunk on Dylan’s mid-sixties heyday, the new box set The Cutting Edge offers three options: Magnum, Jeroboam, and Nebuchadnezzar.

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 2)

How much Bob Dylan do you want? Because The Cutting Edge, the massive new box set collecting all of Dylan’s studio work from 1965-1966, almost certainly has enough.

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 3)

How much Bob Dylan do you want? Because The Cutting Edge, the massive new box set collecting all of Dylan’s studio work from 1965-1966, almost certainly has too much.

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 4)

The promise of the massive new box set of archival Bob Dylan material is also the problem with it: its size

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 5)

The promise of the massive new box set of archival Bob Dylan material is also the problem with it: its size.

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 6)

The promise of the massive new box set of archival Bob Dylan material is also its problem: its size. Covering one of Dylan’s most fertile and revolutionary periods, 1965 to 1965…

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 7)

The promise of the massive new box set of archival Bob Dylan material is also its problem: its size. Covering one of Dylan’s most fertile and revolutionary periods, 1965 to 1966, the set comes in three configurations, the smallest of which has 36 tracks, almost three times as many as Blonde on Blonde, the longest album represented here. Both the Jeroboam and Nebuchadnezzar sets contain no fewer than twenty takes of “Like a Rolling Stone,” the epochal stream of consciousness (and venom) that Dylan took to number two fifty years ago.

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 8)

Bob Dylan’s new archival box set, The Cutting Edge, which covers Dylan’s studio sessions in the watershed years of 1965 and 1966, has a title that cuts both ways—it’s both a recognition that Dylan was at the vanguard of pop music during the period and an acknowledgement that most of the material here was (and maybe should have been) left on the cutting-room floor. Both the Jeroboam and Nebuchadnezzar sets contain no fewer than twenty takes of “Like a Rolling Stone,” the epochal stream of consciousness (and venom) that Dylan took to number two fifty years ago.

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 9)

The title of Bob Dylan’s new archival box set, The Cutting Edge, which covers Dylan’s studio sessions in the watershed years of 1965 and 1966, cuts both ways—it’s both a recognition that Dylan was at the vanguard of pop music during the period and an acknowledgement that most of the material here was (and maybe should have been) left on the cutting-room floor. Both the Jeroboam and Nebuchadnezzar sets contain no fewer than twenty takes of “Like a Rolling Stone,” the epochal stream of consciousness (and venom) that Dylan took to number two on the pop charts.

THEDYLANMOTHERLODE
(Take 10)

The title of the new archival Bob Dylan box set, The Cutting Edge, which covers Dylan’s studio sessions in the watershed years of 1965 and 1966, cuts both ways—it’s both a recognition that Dylan was at the vanguard of American culture during the period and an acknowledgement that most of the material here was (and maybe should have been) left on the cutting-room floor. Both the Jeroboam and Nebuchadnezzar sets contain no fewer than twenty takes of “Like a Rolling Stone,” the epochal stream of consciousness (and venom) that Dylan took to number two on the pop charts.